The Wandering Teacher: MIA?

Hello! I am alive! What a crazy whirlwind couple of days. Let's take it back to the 30th.

30/12/15

This was the day the tour left. We had to be at the hotel at 6:15am to check in, have our bags weighed (which thankfully didn't happen) and then get on our coaches. There were about 400 people there all going on different tours so it was mayhem! We managed to get through and thankfully I'd made some friends the night before so I was able to meet up with them and be on the same bus. We left London at around 7:30 and made our was to Dover to get the ferry. I was pretty due to jetlag and being awake at 4:30am! We made it to Dover and got on the ferry. The water was very choppy and it wasn't the most pleasant experience but after 90 minutes we made it to Calais, France. We got back on the coach and started the longest part of our ride. The drive from Calais to Amsterdam was close to 6 hours. We finally arrived in Amsterdam around 5:30 and dropped our bags and had dinner. Yep that's 4 countries in 1 day - UK, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. On the bus our tour guide told is all about our plans for the next few days and that she as actually a local so was able to give us a lot of info about the Netherlands. Apparently it has to be done so our first stop in Amsterdam was the red light district. I'm not going to go into detail about this but let's just say it was an experience and I won't be going back there again. Pretty much everything in the Netherlands is legal and the reasoning for that is so it can be controlled but it just didn't feel right walking through. The smells you can smell are not nice at all. We had the choice if continuing in the red light district or going back to the hotel with Lo, our tour guide. I was feeling very anxious in the red light district, I didn't like it at all so as the granny I am, I went back to the hotel. I was quite jet lagged and had been up since 4:30am so bed sounded great. I woke up the next morning still feeling quite anxious about the city because of the night before but we had things to go and see so I decided to give Amsterdam a second chance.

31/12/15

NYE. The day started with breakfast and then a short drive through the Dutch countryside to a cheese and clogs house. The Dutch countryside is beautiful and there are canals all over. We go to the place and immediately saw a pig doing twists and turns which was very cute. Then we went into the first room and saw how they made cheese. It was very interesting. The next room showed us how they make clogs and that was fascinating. The room was full of them, clogs in all colours and even clog slippers! The last room was full of souvenirs and we also got to do some cheese tasting which was delicious! After this we got dropped in the city and we had to day free to ourselves.

My friends and I decided we really wanted to go to the 'I Amsterdam' sign and then a few of the boys wanted to go to the Heineken brewery.

While the boys did that, we went to the House of Bols which is a cocktail house! This was wonderful! It was all about Lucals Bols and Genever and it was really interesting. At the end we got a cocktail and to try some of the Bols flavours - I had a lychee cocktail and tried the watermelon and peach flavours.

Before our cocktails we had the most delicious lunch, it was a bagel from this bagel house and it was so tasty!

After our cocktail experience, I needed to find something to wear for NYE. I hadn't planned ahead and packed nothing but jumper style tops. I knew that if I headed into H&M I'd find something. I did, a top and a pair of boots which I really hope are going to fit in my case...

We decided to head back to the hotel and have a nap before getting ready for the night. We got back to our hotel about 3:45 which meant a good 1.5 hr rest! For dinner we were doing a walking tour where basically our tour manager dropped us in the Rembrantsplein where there are stacks of restaurants and we could choose. Now obviously it's NYE so it was crazy busy but we managed to find an Italian restaurant to fit 7 of us! 10 points to anyone who can guess what I ordered...

Our food took ages so we ended up staying there before going to the club for NYE. Contiki had booked out this club just for people on the tours so there were about 400 Contiki people which was really good. We ended up getting in the club about 10. Like in Berlin, fireworks are legal so at midnight everyone ran out to see the fireworks going off. It wasn't as bad as Berlin with people throwing fire crackers all over the place but it definitely had nothing on the Sydney display. We went back in for a little bit before deciding it was time to head home. We decided to get a taxi. Obviously it's NYE so the prices are up a bit and our hotel is about 30 mins out of the centre, the taxi cost 50 euro but we split it 4 ways which was good. We finally got home and crashed and now it's 9:48 and I'm filling you in on the last 2 days!

I had such a fun time last night celebrating the new year with new friends. Today we are going to be hiring some bikes and just riding around Amsterdam. We won't get the chance to go in the Anne frank house but we will ride around and get to see the outside which will be good,

I'm really glad I have Amsterdam a second chance because it really is a beautiful city!